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Aspen Creek parent says school, district mishandled bullying

By Amy Bounds

Staff Writer

Posted:
10/09/2018 07:52:34 PM MDT

Updated:
10/09/2018 07:53:09 PM MDT

(Jeremy Papasso / Staff Photographer)

The mother of an eighth-grader with a disability who attends Broomfield's Aspen Creek K-8 says the relentless bullying of her daughter highlights flaws in how the Boulder Valley School District handles such incidents.

Andrea Blake, who asked that her 13-year-old daughter's name not be used, said it took going to court for a temporary restraining order to make it safe for her daughter to return to school.

"I want to see changes happen," she said.

She said her daughter returned to school last week because, after the temporary restraining order was granted, the student responsible for the bullying moved to another school through an administrative transfer.

A judge on Tuesday agreed to keep the restraining order in place for a year and then review it, according to Blake's lawyer, Igor Raykin.

Boulder Valley spokesman Randy Barber said the school investigated the bullying complaints, created a comprehensive safety plan with input from the family and "will continue to address each concern raised."

School investigations found "many of the allegations to be unsubstantiated or false," he added.

"The administration at Aspen Creek has been investigating and working actively since this was brought forward," he said. "Our schools have an obligation to keep all students safe."

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Blake said verbal bullying started last school year and went on "for quite some time" before her daughter told her. Talking about negative situations is difficult for her daughter because of her disability, she said.

After the school investigated and determined it was "one student's word against another's," she said, the student retaliated, the bullying escalated to physical violence and she removed her daughter from school.

"The bully was empowered by getting away with what she was doing," she said. "(My daughter) will be emotionally scarred by the very process that was supposed to help her."

When the bullying continued this school year, she said, the school created a safety plan for her daughter, but didn't always follow it. She again removed her daughter from school.

The school then assigned an aide to stay with her daughter. Blake said that wasn't an acceptable option because of her daughter's disability.

"That would clearly further stigmatize her and lead to more bullying," she said. "The emphasis on keeping not my daughter, but the bully, protected in school hurts my daughter just as much as the bullying has."

The school district also marked her daughter's absences as unexcused after she again took her out of school, she said.

Her daughter, who spoke at a previous school board meeting, asked why she had to stay home to be safe while the student bullying her went to school.

"Why do I, as a victim, have to face consequences such as staying home from school?" she asked.

She added that she's lost friends and worries that her teachers will be mad and "will not enjoy me in school."

"I used to be a very happy kid, but this whole situation has made me a little depressed and sad," she said. "I do not feel safe at school. I do not enjoy school, and when the administration tried to fix the situation, that was the worst. All I feel is isolation."

Tom Ahlborg, chairman and director of Bullying Recovery, said he is concerned Boulder Valley's policies "seem to be written more from management of liability than stopping bullying."

He said the student who was bullying Blake' daughter was leading "organized shunning."

"That's the most devastating tactic for a middle schooler," he said.

He also said the district violated special education law by failing to protect the bullied child from retaliation and "putting the onus on the disabled child" to stay safe from bullying.

Suggesting a one-on-one teacher's aide was particularly egregious, he said.

"She becomes a kid with a babysitter," he said. "There's something even more different about her. The school should have put the aide on the bully. In an ideal situation, the bully gets the consequences."

He said they plan to file a civil rights complaint with the Colorado Department of Education over the district's handling of the situation.

Blake added that she is concerned students without disabilities, who don't have additional protections provided by special education laws, won't be able to get their bullying resolved.

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